Get Busy Living Or ...

Today was one of those almost achingly beautiful days that Maui can have this time of year. The wind is now calm, and will be for a few days. I could care less.  I was happy to be outside this morning and gaze at the palm trees pointing into the crystal blue sky.  I could smell the sweet fragrance of plumeria drifting over from a near by garden.  The temperature was a perfect 80 and the air was as dry as Maui can provide. There was a very happy cat leaning and rubbing against my legs. In the distance I could see the north shore spreading out with small but fun breakers playing on the reefs.

Life isn't always going to be this way.  We should never take the good days for granted when they're here right now.  Just last week I was feeling much worse.  In fact I had a bit of a health scare that in retrospect was quite trivial.  But I'll admit to a few anxious moments.  It began with a routine paddle out with Julia to the line up at Hookipa.  I caught my first wave.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  But when I paddled back out I felt a strange sensation - my heart was suddenly pounding hard against my ribs.  I could feel each pulse from my abdomen through my chest and right up to my ears.  I sat on my board hoping this would go away right now.  It did to a small degree but I had no desire to be riding any more waves so returned to shore and sat there thinking WTF?!  I'm not a spring chicken so anything possibly wrong in the heart area is not cool.  When Julia came in we decided to hang on the beach and I slowly relaxed.  But when I got home later that evening I started feeling dull pains in my abdomen and a generally not so good feeling that I later learned is called malaise (an actual medical term). I could not eat.  We considered a drive to the ER.  I decided to try a fitful sleep and see how things felt in the morning.

OK, lets face it, we're all temporary on this planet.  One hundred years from now we'll all be gone and our deeds mostly forgotten.  And every day takes us closer to that destiny.  So what's the big purpose of it all?  I'm not trying to answer that.  But I do think one thing we should do is take advantage of whatever we got, right now that we got it, and start living it and enjoying it.  I'm convinced most of us are taking ourselves and the miracle of our existence for granted.  I'm convinced most people are caught up in maintaining their status or socio-economic level and they have forgotten what it's like to purely enjoy a single day, or a single moment.  Get out there. Enjoy it now.

The next morning I went to the local clinic and they listened and poked and drew blood and hooked me up to an EKG. All amazingly normal. No heart attack or crazy arterial blood clot or any of that.  I did have a slight temperature and my WBC was a bit high indicating a not so serious infection.  And nothing more.  The doctor assured me that an infection can in fact make your heart pound way harder than normal. Nothing particularly worrisome about that. Though I was greatly relieved, I still had a ways to go and spent the remainder of the week mostly on a couch, with a fever that got up to 103 (briefly), and generally feeling like, well malaise.  Just a short a walk to my car totally wiped me out. I felt like I aged 30 years in one day.  Seven days later and I'm just getting over this.  Just.  I missed a week of nice wind and waves.  Oh well.  Could have been worse. Much worse.

This evening Julia and I had dinner with friends down at Kihei.  The sun was starting to set on one of the more beautiful days I have ever experienced.  We decided to take some pictures and have some fun with it.  I was amazed at how great it felt to be almost normal.  You never know when things can change.  You never know when the awesome vacation you were putting off simply cannot happen because, you never know.  Watch a young child doing something they really enjoy.  They are fully in the moment. They are loving life. Remember that feeling.